Carolus V, Emperor of Rome, was wont to say that the Hispanic tongue was seemly for converse with God, the French with friends, the German with enemies, the Italian with the feminine sex.

Either way, German is not a language to speak with either men or women unless they are enemies.

Although I was learning German in school, and even remember being reasonably good at it, I never got to like it. For me, it always was a language best suitable for enemy. There is logic but no beauty. Südamerikanischer Nasenbär may be more descriptive term than “coati” but it is way too long — and ugly.

Even so, surprisingly large number of German words made it into English orthographically unchanged. Many of these loanwords are quite short, by German standard anyway, or refer to rather complex cultural, philosophical or psychological concepts. For instance, “gestalt” is definitely shorter than “a collection of physical, biological, psychological or symbolic entities that creates a unified concept, configuration or pattern which is greater than the sum of its parts”.

Whenever you order a cup of coffee (or tea) in Canaries, you have an opportunity to learn a bit of vernacular. The Canarian company, Café Ortega, came up with a brilliant idea: to put Canarian words (canarismos) where they are least expected… on sugar sachets. I don’t take sugar with my hot drinks, but when I saw a sachet with the word zumbadera on it, I just had to take action. And when I say action, I mean a bit of internet research. Luckily for me, some people not only collect sugar sachets, but share their treasures with the world. Adriana, a schoolgirl and a budding sucrologist from Gran Canaria, did just that. I used many of the words from her collection in the table below.

Mind you, these sugar-sachet definitions of canarismos can be tricky, and not just for chonis (foreign tourists) but for the Spanish speakers too. For example, matraquilla is defined as “pesado con idea fija, obsesión, guineo”. Guineo? In Collins Spanish-English Dictionary, guineo means “banana”. But according to Léxico Canario y Palabras Canarias guide, guineo means “repetitive talk” or “nonsense”. Or take mago: “campurrio, maúro, hombre del campo” — both campurrio and maúro are Canarian words themselves.